Review - Romeo Redeemed (Juliet Immortal #2) by Stacey Jay

Title: Romeo Redeemed

Author: Stacey Jay

Series: 2nd (Juliet Immortal)

Pages: 384

Published: October 9th 2012 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers

ISBN: 9780385740180

Source: Publisher via Netgalley

Description: Cursed to live out eternity in his rotted corpse, Romeo, known for his ruthless, cutthroat ways, is given the chance to redeem himself by traveling back in time to save the life of Ariel Dragland. Unbeknownst to her, Ariel is important to both the evil Mercenaries and the love-promoting Ambassadors and holds the fate of the world in her hands. Romeo must win her heart and make her believe in love, turning her away from her darker potential before his work is discovered by the Mercenaries. While his seduction begins as yet another lie, it soon becomes his only truth. Romeo vows to protect Ariel from harm, and do whatever it takes to win her heart and soul. But when Ariel is led to believe his love is a deception, she becomes vulnerable to Mercenary manipulation, and her own inner darkness may ultimately rip them apart.  

I Give This ...
 

I liked the idea of real life people who may have inspired the Shakespeare tale of Romeo & Juliet.  It's honestly one of my favorite stories and one of those that I'm more likely to read a twist on.  I liked the first one well enough that I was curious how it would play out.

I like that Romeo was given a chance to redeem himself in modern times while Juliet gets to relive her life in her own time.  At first I didn't like the assignment that Romeo was given.  How is making someone fall in love promoting love?  I think it was more the idea of keeping Ariel out of the hand of the Mercenaries.  However, Romeo sees the problem with this scenario and vows to do all he can to protect her.  However, Ariel's life has been so full of turmoils that she has a hard time trusting Romeo.  But, as the cards play out, Romeo learns what love really means.

While, I know this was Romeo's book, I kind of wish we got more of Juliet.  She's sent back to her time with all the knowledge she's obtained over the centuries.  It puts her in a dangerous position were she must fight for her life.  Here is were I felt the story lost me a lot.  I honestly felt the story tried too hard.  The full back story and reasoning behind the Ambassadors and Mercenaries was complicated and sometimes didn't make sense to me.  I felt myself skimming these parts just to get back to the storyline.  

I was glad that I read this story in the end and it tied up all the loose ends.  However, its not really a series that I would recommend you jump up and go buy.  I've never read anything else by this author, so I have nothing really to compare it to.  

Review - Juliet Immortal (Juliet Immortal #1) by Stacey Jay

Title: Juliet Immortal

Author: Stacey Jay

Series: 2nd (Juliet Immortal)

Pages: 307

Published: August 9th 2011 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers 

ISBN: 9780385740166

Source: Personal Copy

Description: The most tragic love story in history . . .Juliet Capulet didn't take her own life. She was murdered by the person she trusted most, her new husband, Romeo Montague, a sacrifice made to ensure his own immortality. But what Romeo didn't anticipate was that Juliet would be granted eternity, as well, and would become an agent for the Ambassadors of Light. For 700 years, she's fought Romeo for the souls of true lovers, struggling to preserve romantic love and the lives of the innocent. Until the day she meets someone she's forbidden to love, and Romeo, oh Romeo, will do everything in his power to destroy that love. I Give This ....
 

I'm a huge Shakespeare fan, so there was really never any doubt that I would read this.  It was just a matter of when.  I finally picked it up, and really I'm glad I did because there are some interesting thoughts concerning the original tale of Romeo and Juliet.

Juliet is inhabiting the body of Ariel for most of this tale, while Romeo is Dylan.  It's not overly confusing even though both character names are kind of used interchangeably.  We get little bits and pieces of information concerning past lives, especially concerning the original life were they made their choice to become what they are.  I really liked the idea that Romeo and Juliet are waring over true lovers souls.  It's the ultimate battle between good and evil, although I found the idea that one soul could be corrupted to kill the other a little disheartening.  

There are two points that I found extremely interesting about this story. First, that the bodies they are chosen to inhabit are already at ends with each other.  Ariel is truly a broken soul.  She has only one friend, if you count her as that, and often feels like her mother doesn't love her.  It's no wonder that she agrees to go out with Dylan, who is only acting on a bet.  But of course Ariel finds out and in an act of extreme anger, she sends their car off a cliff.  Enter in Romeo and Juliet.  Juliet's job is find the ones marked as true lovers according to the aura and help the realize their true feelings.  Once they are marked as being truly in love, the power of their love is given to the Ambassadors of Light and there is no danger of them being tempted by the Mercenaries.  That is what Romeo is.  

I was a little surprised at Romeo at first.  I expected someone heartless just from the description.  But, those initial scenes in the canyon are that of a psychopath.   So, yeah I was a little confused when Romeo suddenly switched to the idea of this being their shot to get out of the vows they took so many years ago.  I don't blame Juliet for not believing him, I didn't.  Which brings up my second point.  The actual story of Romeo and Juliet. I think this book does an excellent job of highlighting the fact that it's a tragedy and not the ultimate romance.  The very idea of the mercenaries is to snuff out that ultimate love.  I think that why Romeo influenced Shakespeare into writing the tragedy, so that was what people could identified with.  It gave Romeo an edge in the game. 

Overall, I liked the book.  But, there were times the storyline behind the Ambassadors and Mercenaries just got too complicated.  The bigger picture behind what each group was doing just didn't make any sense to me.  In the end, I didn't really think either group was inherently good or bad.